Graffiti – Urban Youth Frustration
Graffiti is the most effective form of urban youth frustration. Across Europe and America you see scrawls on amazing to reach places. expressions varying in appeal, always at odds with the feelings of the locals. It’s an expression of some frustration.
I find I doodle often where there’s frustration. My environment becomes uncommonly umtidy as unconscious frustration builds up.
In a tidy environment, spurts of graffiti can only result from frustration, much like the repressed toddler in us throwing temper tantrums.
The younger we are, the more physical energy we tend to have. When frustrated, this energy has to be vented somehow.
Graffiti is a classic expression of mental distress. It may well be that the person drawing the graffiti is not entirely aware of the source of frustration driving them. I have been in mental wards where graffiti was displayed. Like a rapidly changing allergy, the areas they are expressed are often difficult to access. On several train rides on the South east I am amazed at the location of the graffiti I have observed.
The authors seem determined to ensure their expressions are as long lasting as possible. In societies where aggression is generally frowned upon, often severely punished, graffiti is the most effective vent of youth frustration.
A large number of graffiti may well be in response to feelings of oppression and bullying. To some it may be feelings of bullying by the “establishment”. Conversely in quite a number of cases it may well be an expression of the bully.
I recently passed by a business that had closed down for no more than a few months on a minor high street. The shutters were covered with graffiti. To me that was definitely an expression of “Yeah! This is our territory now”
Strangely enough, I am yet to hear of graffiti incidents in less affluent societies. My interim conclusion: – We often despise the very things we are blessed with in our environment.
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